The present invention relates to the application of a laser beam for cataract treatment, and more particularly to the laser treatment of the soft and membranous types of cataract found in young patients, including congenital cataracts.
In adults, when a hard nucleous is formed inside the lens, the present method is not indicated.
In soft cataracts, a small cut of the lens capsule is sufficient to let the cataract substance out of the lens capsule into anterior chamber of the eye, where the substance is gradually dissolved.
In membranous cataracts, cutting of the pupillary membrane (the so-called discission procedure) is in itself a preferred treatment.
To date, surgery is the only known way to produce the said cut in the lens capsule and/or pupillary membrane.
This technique has disadvantages in that it involves all the dangers inherent to surgery.
Among such dangers are: a perforating injury to the eye, would cause leakage the distulization cicatrix of cornea tissue profileration development of synechias in the anterior chamber, the possibility of infection and inflammation and other complications.